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  11 <h1>Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)</h1>
  12 <p class="normaltext">This page contains answers to some of the most
  13   frequently asked questions by people installing Moodle. If you have
  14   followed the <a href="./?file=install.html">installation instructions</a> but
  15   you still have a problem, then this page is probably the best place to be. </p>
  16
  17 <p class="normaltext">If you don't find your answer here try the <a href="http://moodle.org/mod/forum/index.php?id=5" target="_top">Using
  18   Moodle</a> course on moodle.org. Start by searching the forums using a few keywords,
  19   in case your problem has already been discussed. If you don't find
  20   anything, then try posting your question into the appropriate forum - somebody will
  21   usually be able to help you.</p>
  22
  23
  24 <p class="normaltext">If you have tried a number of solutions without resolving an issue,
  25 and you are running behind a firewall, it may be advisable to try re-configuring your
  26 firewall to ensure that it is not blocking a required function or necessary communication.
  27 Firewalls very rarely cause problems with Moodle but are occasionally responsible for
  28 reduced functionality due to a mis-configuration in the firewall settings.
  29
  30
  31
  32 <p class="normaltext">Use this list to jump to the appropriate answer below:</p>
  33
  34 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#filenotfound">Whenever I try to access or view a file that I uploaded, I get an error &quot;File not Found&quot;</a></p>
  35
  36
  37
  38 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#php">PHP - is it installed and what version do I have?</a></p>
  39
  40
  41
  42 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#blankpages">Why are all my pages blank?</a></p>
  43
  44
  45
  46 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#errorgetstring">My pages show fatal errors such as : call to undefined function: get_string()</a></p>
  47
  48
  49
  50 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#headerssent">Why do I keep getting error messages about &quot;headers already sent&quot;?</a></p>
  51
  52
  53
  54 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#failedopen">I keep getting this error: Failed opening required '/web/moodle/lib/setup.php'</a></p>
  55
  56
  57
  58 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#quotes">Any text I add with an apostrophe (') or a quote (&quot;) causes errors or comes up with a slash added</a></p>
  59
  60
  61
  62 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#sessiontmp">I keep getting error messages about session_start</a></p>
  63
  64
  65
  66 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#fixdirroot">When I go to the admin page, I get told to make dirroot blank!</a></p>
  67
  68
  69
  70 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#loginsetting">I login but the login link doesn't change. I am logged in and can navigate freely.</a></p>
  71
  72
  73
  74 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#resource1">When trying to add a resource I receive error messages.</a></p>
  75
  76
  77
  78 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#noadmin">During the initial setting-up process, I never get asked to create an admin account!</a></p>
  79
  80 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#nologin">I can't log in at all- I just stay stuck on the login screen.</a></p>
  81
  82 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#backup">How do I backup my Moodle site?</a></p>
  83
  84 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#locale">Why doesn't my Moodle site display the
  85
  86   time &amp; date correctly?</a></p>
  87
  88 <p class="questionlink"><a href="#cron">Email copies are not being sent
  89
  90   from my forums</a></p>
  91
  92 <p class="questionlink">&nbsp;</p>
  93
  94
  95
  96
  97
  98
  99
 100 <h3><a name="filenotfound"></a>Whenever I try to access or view
 101
 102
 103
 104   a file that I uploaded, I get an error &quot;File not Found&quot;</h3>
 105
 106
 107
 108 <p class="answer">For example: Not Found: The requested URL /moodle/file.php/2/myfile.jpg
 109
 110
 111
 112   was not found on this server. </p>
 113
 114
 115
 116 <p class="answer">Your web server needs to be configured to allow the part of
 117
 118
 119
 120   the URL after a script name to be passed directly to the script. This is usually
 121
 122
 123
 124   enabled in Apache 1, but is usually disabled by default in Apache 2. To turn
 125
 126
 127
 128   it on, add this line to your httpd.conf, or to a .htaccess file in your local
 129
 130
 131
 132   directory (see the <a href="./?file=install.html#webserver">Install documentation</a>
 133
 134
 135
 136   for more details): </p>
 137
 138
 139
 140 <p class="answercode"><b>AcceptPathInfo</b> on</p>
 141
 142
 143
 144 <p class="answer">Note, this will ONLY work for Apache versions 2.x. </p>
 145
 146
 147
 148 <p class="answer">If you are not using Apache 2 and you still have this problem
 149
 150
 151
 152   (unlikely) then you can switch Moodle to use an alternative method. The disadvantages
 153
 154
 155
 156   are a slight loss of performance for your users and you won't be able to use
 157
 158
 159
 160   relative links within HTML resources. </p>
 161
 162
 163
 164 <p class="answer">To use this alternative method: login as Admin, go into the
 165
 166
 167
 168   "Configure Variables" page and change the setting for "<b>slasharguments</b>".
 169
 170
 171
 172   You should now be able to access your uploaded files.</p>
 173
 174
 175
 176 <p class="answer">&nbsp;</p>
 177
 178
 179
 180
 181
 182
 183
 184   <h3><a name="php"></a>PHP - is it installed and what version
 185
 186
 187
 188   do I have?</h3>
 189
 190
 191
 192   <p class="answer">Make a new file on your web site called info.php, containing the following
 193
 194
 195
 196     text, and call it from your browser:</p>
 197
 198
 199
 200
 201
 202
 203
 204   <p class="answercode">&lt;?PHP phpinfo() ?&gt;</p>
 205
 206
 207
 208 <p class="answer">If nothing happens then you don't have PHP installed. See the
 209
 210
 211
 212   installation docs for some information about where to download it for your computer.</p>
 213
 214
 215
 216 <p class="answer">&nbsp;</p>
 217
 218
 219
 220 <h3><a name="blankpages"></a>Why are all my pages blank? </h3>
 221
 222
 223
 224 <p class="answer">Check the dirroot variable in config.php. You must use complete,
 225
 226
 227
 228   absolute pathnames, eg:</p>
 229
 230
 231
 232 <p class="answercode"> $CFG->dirroot = "d:\inetpub\sites\www.yoursite.com\web\moodle";</p>
 233
 234
 235
 236 <p>&nbsp; </p>
 237
 238
 239
 240 <p class="answer">Redhat Linux platform please see: <a href="http://moodle.org/doc/?file=installamp.html">Redhat Linux</a></p>
 241
 242
 243
 244 <p>&nbsp; </p>
 245
 246
 247
 248 <h3><a name="errorgetstring"></a>My pages show fatal errors such
 249
 250
 251
 252   as : call to undefined function: get_string()</h3>
 253
 254
 255
 256 <p class="answer">If you see errors like:</p>
 257
 258
 259
 260 <p class="answercode">Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in c:\program
 261
 262
 263
 264   files\easyphp\www\moodle\config.php on line 94 <br />
 265
 266
 267
 268   Fatal error: Call to undefined function: get_string() in c:\program files\easyphp\www\moodle\mod\resource\lib.php
 269
 270
 271
 272   on line 11</p>
 273
 274
 275
 276 <p class="answer">then it's likely you have left out a semi-colon or ending quote
 277
 278
 279
 280   from a line in config.php (previous to line 94).</p>
 281
 282
 283
 284 <p class="answer">Another reason could be that you have opened config.php in a
 285
 286
 287
 288   program like Word to edit it, and saved it as a HTML web page, instead of a
 289
 290
 291
 292   proper text file.</p>
 293
 294
 295
 296 <p>&nbsp;</p>
 297
 298
 299
 300 <h3><a name="headerssent"></a>Why do I keep getting error messages
 301
 302
 303
 304   about &quot;headers already sent&quot;?</h3>
 305
 306
 307
 308 <p class="answer">If you see errors like this:</p>
 309
 310
 311
 312 <p class="answercode">Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already
 313
 314
 315
 316   sent by (output started at /webs/moodle/config.php:87) in /webs/moodle/lib/moodlelib.php
 317
 318
 319
 320   on line 1322 </p>
 321
 322
 323
 324 <p class="answercode"> Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already
 325
 326
 327
 328   sent by (output started at /webs/moodle/config.php:87) in /webs/moodle/lib/moodlelib.php
 329
 330
 331
 332   on line 1323 </p>
 333
 334
 335
 336 <p class="answercode"> Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already
 337
 338
 339
 340   sent by (output started at /webs/moodle/config.php:87) in /webs/moodle/login/index.php
 341
 342
 343
 344   on line 54 </p>
 345
 346
 347
 348 <p class="answer">You have blank lines or spaces after the final ?> in your config.php
 349
 350
 351
 352   file. Sometimes text editors add these - for example Notepad on Windows - so
 353
 354
 355
 356   you may have to try a different text editor to remove these spaces or blank
 357
 358
 359
 360   lines completely. </p>
 361
 362
 363
 364 <p class="answer">&nbsp;</p>
 365
 366
 367
 368 <h3><a name="failedopen"></a>I keep getting this error: Failed
 369
 370
 371
 372   opening required '/web/moodle/lib/setup.php'</h3>
 373
 374
 375
 376 <p class="answer">In your config.php, the setting that you use for the dirroot
 377
 378
 379
 380   variable must be the <strong>complete path from the root of your server's hard
 381
 382
 383
 384   drive</strong>.</p>
 385
 386
 387
 388 <p class="answer">Sometimes people only use the path from their home directory,
 389
 390
 391
 392   or relative to the root of the web server directory.</p>
 393
 394
 395
 396 <p class="answer">&nbsp;</p>
 397
 398
 399
 400 <h3><a name="quotes" id="quotes"></a>Any text I add with an apostrophe
 401
 402
 403
 404   (') or a quote (&quot;) causes errors or comes up with a slash added</h3>
 405
 406
 407
 408 <p class="answer">Problems caused by apostrophes are caused by incorrect &quot;magic
 409
 410
 411
 412   quotes&quot; settings. Moodle requires the following settings (which are usually
 413
 414
 415
 416   the default):</p>
 417
 418
 419
 420 <p class="answercode">magic_quotes_gpc = On<br />
 421
 422
 423
 424   magic_quotes_runtime = Off</p>
 425
 426
 427
 428 <p class="answer">See the section on <a href="./?file=install.html#webserver">webserver
 429
 430   configuration</a> in the Installation docs for more details.</p>
 431
 432 <p class="answer">&nbsp;</p>
 433
 434
 435
 436
 437
 438
 439
 440
 441
 442
 443
 444
 445
 446
 447
 448 <h3><a name="sessiontmp"></a>I keep getting error messages about session_start</h3>
 449
 450
 451
 452 <p class="answer">If you see errors like this:</p>
 453
 454
 455
 456 <p class="answercode">Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: open(/tmp\sess_d40f380d37d431fc1516e9a895ad9ce0, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in G:\web\moodle\lib\setup.php on line 123</p>
 457
 458
 459
 460 <p class="answercode">Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: open(/tmp\sess_d40f380d37d431fc1516e9a895ad9ce0, O_RDWR) failed: No such file or directory (2) in G:\web\moodle\lib\setup.php on line 123</p>
 461
 462
 463
 464 <p class="answercode">Warning: session_start() [function.session-start]: Cannot send session cache limiter - headers already sent (output started at G:\web\moodle\lib\setup.php:1) in G:\web\moodle\lib\setup.php on line 123</p>
 465
 466
 467
 468
 469
 470
 471
 472 <p class="answer">... these are all related to the fact that PHP is failing to save
 473
 474
 475
 476   "session" files on your hard disk (in a directory called /tmp).  Usually the
 477
 478
 479
 480   reason is that you don't HAVE a directory called /tmp on your computer.  This
 481
 482
 483
 484   is usually the case with Windows installations.
 485
 486
 487
 488
 489
 490
 491
 492 <p class="answer">The solution is to fix the PHP setting for this path to point to a real directory.  You can do this in your php.ini file:</p>
 493
 494
 495
 496 <p class="answercode">session.save_path = C:\temp</p>
 497
 498
 499
 500 <p class="answer">or otherwise in a .htaccess file in your main moodle directory:</p>
 501
 502
 503
 504 <p class="answercode">php_value session.save_path "/home/moodle/sessions"</p>
 505
 506 <p class="answercode">&nbsp;</p>
 507
 508
 509
 510
 511
 512
 513
 514 <h3><a name="fixdirroot"></a>When I go to the admin page, I get told to make dirroot blank!</h3>
 515
 516
 517
 518 <p class="answer">If you see errors like this in Moodle 1.0.9:</p>
 519
 520
 521
 522
 523
 524
 525
 526 <table class="generalbox" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="5" align="center" border="0">
 527
 528
 529
 530 <tbody>
 531
 532
 533
 534 <tr>
 535
 536
 537
 538 <td bgcolor=#ffbbbb>Please fix your settings in config.php:
 539
 540
 541
 542 <p>You have:
 543
 544
 545
 546 <p>$CFG-&gt;dirroot = "/home/users/fred/public_html/moodle";
 547
 548
 549
 550 <p>but it should be:
 551
 552
 553
 554 <p>$CFG-&gt;dirroot = "";</p></td></tr></tbody></table>
 555
 556
 557
 558
 559
 560
 561
 562 <p class="answer">then you have encountered a small bug that occurs on some servers. The problem is with the error-checking mechanism, not with your actual path.  To fix it, find this line (line 66) in the file admin/index.php: </p>
 563
 564
 565
 566 <p class="answercode">if ($dirroot != $CFG->dirroot) {</p>
 567
 568
 569
 570 <p class="answer">and change it to this:</p>
 571
 572
 573
 574 <p class="answercode">if (!empty($dirroot) and $dirroot != $CFG->dirroot) {</p>
 575
 576 <p class="answercode">&nbsp;</p>
 577
 578
 579
 580
 581
 582 <h3><a name="loginsetting"></a>I login but don't appear to be. I am logged in and can navigate freely.</h3>
 583
 584
 585
 586 <p class="answer">Make sure the URL in your $CFG->wwwroot setting is exactly the
 587
 588   same as the one you are actually using to access the site.</p>
 589
 590 <p class="answer">&nbsp;</p>
 591
 592
 593
 594 <h3><a name="resource1"></a>When trying to add a resource I receive error messages.</h3>
 595
 596
 597
 598 <p class="answer">Assuming you are using Apache, then it's quite likely that your
 599
 600   setting in config.php for $CFG->wwwroot is different from the actual URL you
 601
 602   are using to access the site. Also try turning off "<b>secureforms</b>" in the
 603
 604   admin settings.</p>
 605
 606 <p class="answer">&nbsp;</p>
 607
 608
 609
 610
 611
 612
 613
 614 <h3><a name="noadmin"></a>During the initial setting-up process, I never get asked to create an admin account!</h3>
 615
 616
 617
 618 <p class="answer">This is a known bug in versions of Moodle up to 1.0.9, now fixed in the main code and version 1.1.</p>
 619
 620
 621
 622 <p class="answer">It doesn't affect all people, it only occurs when the person installing Moodle has a
 623
 624   cookie in their browser from another program on the same site, called "user", "admin", or "teacher".</p>
 625
 626
 627
 628 <p class="answer">Quick fixes include deleting those cookies from your browser before installing, using a different browser, or editing the file moodle/admin/user.php to insert these lines near the top:</p>
 629
 630
 631
 632 <p class="answercode">unset($user);<br />unset($admin);<br />unset($teacher);</p>
 633
 634
 635
 636 <p class="answer">After performing any of these fixes it might be a good idea
 637
 638   to drop all the tables in your database and re-install again from scratch.</p>
 639
 640 <p class="answer">&nbsp;</p>
 641
 642
 643
 644
 645
 646
 647
 648 <h3><a name="nologin"></a>I can't log in - I just stay stuck on the login screen.</h3>
 649
 650
 651
 652 <p class="answer">The most common cause for this is that your own computer (not your Moodle server)
 653
 654                   has a firewall that is stripping referrer information from the browser.  Here are
 655
 656                   some instructions for fixing <a href="http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nip.nsf/46f26a2d6dafb0a788256bc7005c3fa3/b9b47ad7eddd343b88256c6b006a85a8?OpenDocument&amp;src=bar_sch_nam">Norton firewall products</a>.</p>
 657
 658
 659
 660 <p class="answer">The server admin can also fix this for everyone by editing the Moodle configuration
 661
 662                   page and changing the variable "<b>secureforms</b>" to "No".</p>
 663
 664
 665
 666 <p class="answer">Another possible cause of this problem is that sessions are
 667
 668   not configured properly on the server. You can test this by calling the script
 669
 670   http://yourserver/moodle/lib/session-test.php.</p>
 671
 672 <p class="answer">&nbsp;</p>
 673
 674
 675
 676
 677
 678
 679
 680 <h3><a name="backup"></a>How do I backup my whole Moodle site?</h3>
 681
 682
 683
 684 <p class="answer">There are two main things you need to make a copy of: the database and the uploaded files.  The Moodle scripts themselves are less important, since you can always download a fresh copy if you have to.</p>
 685
 686
 687
 688 <p class="answer">There are many ways to do such backups.  Here is an outline of a little script you can run on Unix to backup the database (it works well to have such a script run daily via a cron task</p>
 689
 690 <p class="answercode">cd /my/backup/directory</p>
 691
 692 <p class="answercode">mv moodle-database.sql.gz moodle-database-old.sql.gz</p>
 693
 694 <p class="answercode">mysqldump -h example.com -u myusername --password=mypassword -C -Q -e -a mydatabasename > moodle-database.sql</p>
 695
 696 <p class="answercode">gzip moodle-database.sql</p>
 697
 698 <p class="answer">For the files, you can use rsync regularly to copy only the changed files to another host:</p>
 699
 700 <p class="answercode">rsync -auvtz --delete -e ssh mysshusername@example.com:/my/server/directory
 701
 702   /my/backup/directory/</p>
 703
 704 <p class="answercode">&nbsp;</p>
 705
 706
 707
 708
 709
 710 <h3><a name="locale"></a>Why doesn't my Moodle site display the time &amp; date correctly?</h3>
 711
 712
 713
 714 <p class="answer">Each language requires a specific language code (called a <strong>locale</strong>
 715
 716   code) to allow dates to be displayed correctly. The language packs contain default
 717
 718   standard codes, but sometimes these don't work on Windows servers. </p>
 719
 720 <p class="answer">You can find the correct locale codes for Windows on these two
 721
 722   pages: <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vclib/html/_crt_language_strings.asp" target="_blank">Language
 723
 724   codes</a> and <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vclib/html/_crt_country_strings.asp" target="_blank">Country/region
 725
 726   codes</a>.(eg &quot;esp_esp&quot; for spanish)</p>
 727
 728 <p class="answer">These new locale codes can be entered on the Admin -&gt; Configure
 729
 730   -&gt; Variables page, where they override the ones in the currently chosen language
 731
 732   pack.</p>
 733
 734 <p class="answer">&nbsp;</p>
 735
 736 <h3><a name="cron"></a>Email copies are not being sent
 737
 738   from my forums </h3>
 739
 740 <p class="answer">You <strong>must</strong> set up cron properly if you want Moodle
 741
 742   to send out automatic email from forums, assignments etc. This same
 743
 744   process also performs a number of clean-up tasks such as deleting old unconfirmed
 745
 746   users, unenrolling old students and so on.</p>
 747
 748 <p class="answer">Basically, you need to set up a process to regularly call the
 749
 750   script http://yoursite/admin/cron.php. Please see <a href="./?file=install.html#cron">the
 751
 752   section on cron in the Installation documentation</a>.</p>
 753
 754 <p class="answer">Tip: Try the default setting in Moodle variables page. Leave the smtphost blank.
 755
 756 This will be acceptable for the majority of users.
 757 <p class="answer">&nbsp;
 758 <p class="answer">&nbsp;
 759
 760
 761 <hr />
 762
 763
 764
 765 <p align="center" class="normaltext"><a href='ma&#105&#108t&#111:ma%72%74in@%6d%6fo%64%6c%65.o%72g' title='mar&#116&#105n@&#109oo&#100&#108&#101&#46&#111&#114g'>Suggest
 766
 767
 768
 769   a new FAQ</a> (include the answer!)</p>
 770
 771
 772
 773 <hr />
 774
 775
 776
 777 <p align="right"><strong><em>Thanks to John Eyre for helping to maintain this
 778
 779
 780
 781   FAQ.</em></strong></p>
 782
 783
 784
 785 <p align="center"><font size="1"><a href="." target="_top">Moodle Documentation</a></font></p>
 786
 787
 788
 789 <p align="center"><font size="1">Version: $Id: faq.html,v 1.6 2003/03/30 13:54:28
 790
 791
 792
 793   moodler Exp $</font></p>
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 797
 798
 799
 800
 801 </body>
 802
 803
 804
 805 </html>
 806